Biglaw to Plaintiff's Firm Owner: AMA Forum

[Lacepiece23]

I left bigalaw about ten months ago. Started my own firm doing plaintiff's employment law. Figured I'd start an AMA in case anyone is curious about this as an exit option.

So far, no regrets. I think that starting your own law firm is the best biglaw exit option. There's different stresses. But I feel like I get to help people and make money. Usually, you only get to pick one. So, happy to answer any questions that you may have.

[albinododobird]

Were you doing employment litigation in big law? If so, do you think you would have been able to do what you're doing without that experience? And if not, what were the main impediments to starting your practice? Has it been difficult for you to get clients?

[uygiugiyugyugk]

i assume you mean, discrimination, eeo, sexual harassment, etc etc?

[k_moreno]

How many years were you in biglaw?
How much money are you making now?
What type of market are you in?
How many employees do you have?
What's the best part?
What's the worst part?

[GavinMcG]

What's your runway look like? Are you still default dead, or were you able to bring over enough business to be default alive?
Would love to know ballparks for your balance sheet, and where on the spectrum from "comfortable" to "terrified" that puts you, financially.

[Lacepiece23]

Were you doing employment litigation in big law? If so, do you think you would have been able to do what you're doing without that experience? And if not, what were the main impediments to starting your practice? Has it been difficult for you to get clients?

The only employment lit I did in biglaw was a pro bono trial where I came in after summary judgment and tried the case. I mostly did MDL products liability. So, the answer is yes, I think that I would be able to do it without that experience. Litigation is litigation. There are nuances to employment law, but if you were good at biglaw, there's a good chance you can be resourceful and pick those nuances up quickly. I am lucky,however, that my wife does employment law on the defense side.

Honestly, there weren't really any impediments. I had some lucky breaks. I had zero connections in my market (only been here for two years after laterally from another market), and no employment law experience. Two weeks before I started I met a worker's comp attorney who introduced me to a few other attorneys. They sent me a few cases.

I also started learning search engine optimization about 8 months before I launched. I had a theory that I could rank my site on Google for employment law. I was right. This was a pretty big gamble, but if it didn't work out I would have just hit the pavement more for referrals. I don't have to now since I get 5 or 6 calls a day.

[Lacepiece23]

i assume you mean, discrimination, eeo, sexual harassment, etc etc?

Exactly. I've done some non-compete stuff. I can charge like $300/hr, but they kind of turn into a pain in the ass because the biglaw firms do not know how to be plaintiffs lawyers, and I feel bad charging some five-figure employee this rate. If another one comes through the door, I might refer it.

I also am trying to get into some wage and hour cases. I also have a FCA case. But these are pretty new areas for me and I'm co-counseling them.

[Lacepiece23]

How many years were you in biglaw?
How much money are you making now?
What type of market are you in?
How many employees do you have?
What's the best part?
What's the worst part?

How many years were you in biglaw?
I was in biglaw for just over five years.

How much money are you making now?
I am on track for six figures in revenue for my first year (only ten months in). I will have only settled like 5 cases. I had a big outlier this year that only comes around every few years in my practice. But my pipeline is full. So, I expect revenue to double next year as I have close to ten cases in litigation and another 15 or 20 at the EEOC waiting for right to sue letters.

What type of market are you in?
I service all of Pennsylvania.

How many employees do you have?
Just hired my first one not too long ago.

What's the best part?
Helping real people. I feel like I'm a public interest attorney, but I am going to potentially make mid-sized firm money at worse or biglaw senior associate money (being slightly optimistic). The ceiling, however, is a lot higher, even for employment litigation.

My clients are so grateful. I get so many thank yous. Some of the habits for service have carried over from biglaw. And those little habits that were drilled into me make my clients love me because they don't expect it.

The next best part is being a partner (owner). I call the shots. I do all the interesting work. I delegate things I don't like doing. A couple of months ago, I've been on cases against biglaw partners at top firms. I was never even allowed to be on the call when I was an associate. Stuff like that.

What's the worst part?
The stress of having to own your decisions, not knowing when you're taking on too much, and some uncertainties that come with having your own firm. The pros definitely outweigh the cons for me.

[Anonymous User]

do you advertise or use AdWords? What's your budget?

Do you have an office and how much do you pay for it?

How do you sell yourself to clients versus your other competitors in the market who may have more experience (especially since you didn't do employment law in BIGLAW)

What's your hit rate for calls to cases? Assume there's a lot of bad cases out there for this kind of work

[Lacepiece23]

do you advertise or use AdWords? What's your budget?

Do you have an office and how much do you pay for it?

How do you sell yourself to clients versus your other competitors in the market who may have more experience (especially since you didn't do employment law in BIGLAW)

What's your hit rate for calls to cases? Assume there's a lot of bad cases out there for this kind of work

do you advertise or use AdWords? What's your budget?

No, I'm strictly SEO. Now that I'm ranking, I don't have a budget because all leads are free. To rank in the second-largest city in PA, it cost me around 10-15k, including money I spent on the website itself (5k).

Do you have an office and how much do you pay for it?

I pay $250.00 for an office. It's mainly there so I can rank on Google local. I've only gone into it three times for any reason.

How do you sell yourself to clients versus your other competitors in the market who may have more
experience (especially since you didn't do employment law in BIGLAW)

You have this one in reverse. The client needs to sell themselves to me. These cases are so much about who the client is and whether they will care about their case. By time they picked up the phone to call me, they've read my reviews, seen my website, and perhaps read some blog articles/articles on the internet about me. They want to hire me. The question is whether I want to represent them.

What's your hit rate for calls to cases? Assume there's a lot of bad cases out there for this kind of work

Probably around 15-1, lead to case. If you're getting your leads from the internet, half the time you're getting calls about wanting out the Covid vaccine or questions about workplace bullying while still employed. These aren't cases.

I'm also pretty selective. I don't take a case just because there is a protected characteristic and/or a protected activity in play. I don't care about salary or anything (probably never will) because I like representing low wage workers who got screwed over. But I do want to see a certain type of facts depending on the case.

[jagpaw]

Thanks for doing this. For someone with a transactional (and no litigation) background do you think it would be feasible to learn as a solo (perhaps by partnering with a more experienced practitioner)?

[Anonymous User]

Thanks for doing this. For someone with a transactional (and no litigation) background do you think it would be feasible to learn as a solo (perhaps by partnering with a more experienced practitioner)?

If you’re talking about doing litigation. Sure, it’s not that hard and there are more resources on our side of the law such as listserves and the like.

I also have friends that do corporate. They are making a killing. They pitch like $300-$500 dollar rates to clients. And you can do that math. If you bill just 1500 a year, you’re taking home a ton.

[Anonymous User]

Thanks for doing this. For someone with a transactional (and no litigation) background do you think it would be feasible to learn as a solo (perhaps by partnering with a more experienced practitioner)?

If you’re talking about doing litigation. Sure, it’s not that hard and there are more resources on our side of the law such as listserves and the like.

I also have friends that do corporate. They are making a killing. They pitch like $300-$500 dollar rates to clients. And you can do that math. If you bill just 1500 a year, you’re taking home a ton.

What's the potential client base for a transactional solo?

[Lacepiece23]

Thanks for doing this. For someone with a transactional (and no litigation) background do you think it would be feasible to learn as a solo (perhaps by partnering with a more experienced practitioner)?

If you’re talking about doing litigation. Sure, it’s not that hard and there are more resources on our side of the law such as listserves and the like.

I also have friends that do corporate. They are making a killing. They pitch like $300-$500 dollar rates to clients. And you can do that math. If you bill just 1500 a year, you’re taking home a ton.

What's the potential client base for a transactional solo?

I think it’s the same as biglaw. Two friends who did it basically just got senior enough to where they were working with clients and said hey, I’m going out on my own, how does a 50% discount for the same work sound?

They were able to pick up enough clients to be successful that way. Seems like everyone wants a discount, even big companies. And corporate work is so specialized that you have to basically work at a large firm to learn it.

If you have the guts, there really isn’t all that much competition in the small firm space. It’s almost all lit.

My other friend formed a symbiotic relationship with his old firm. He serves as Gc to several companies on a flat fee basis while the firm does all the heavy lifting on deals. Everyone wins.

[whynott88]

Thank you so much for doing this!! A couple of questions:

1) What do you do about health insurance as a solo practitioner?
2) Are you using/would you recommend any practice management software?
3) I know in personal injury cases there's often a settlement demand made before complaint filed. Does it work the same way in employment law litigation or do you just sign an engagement letter with a client --> file complaint with EEOC ---> right to sue --> file a complaint? What is the timeline on case resolution?
4) How does one develop a sense of what a case is "worth" without experience with employment cases?
5) Are there any resources you would suggest for someone who is thinking about hanging shingle and wants to learn about SEO?

Thank you again very much for sharing your experiences!

[Lacepiece23]

Thank you so much for doing this!! A couple of questions:

1) What do you do about health insurance as a solo practitioner?
2) Are you using/would you recommend any practice management software?
3) I know in personal injury cases there's often a settlement demand made before complaint filed. Does it work the same way in employment law litigation or do you just sign an engagement letter with a client --> file complaint with EEOC ---> right to sue --> file a complaint? What is the timeline on case resolution?
4) How does one develop a sense of what a case is "worth" without experience with employment cases?
5) Are there any resources you would suggest for someone who is thinking about hanging shingle and wants to learn about SEO?

Thank you again very much for sharing your experiences!

No problem! Happy to do this.

1) What do you do about health insurance as a solo practitioner?
I'm on my wife's plan.

2) Are you using/would you recommend any practice management software?
I'm building out my own with Airtable. We're automating a whole lot of stuff. Right now, we have intakes automated to the point that the potential client calls and my virtual receptionist sends them a form. They fill out the form and it goes into our system. I then click a button and decide whether to take the case and it spits out a text. If I take the case, they get a text with a link to set up a time on my calendar at designated times that I block out for intakes. Then, if I move the case forward, folders are created automatically in G Drive and they get sent our longer intake form and then an engagement letter.

Statute of limitation and charge deadlines are also created based off the intake form and calendared automatically.

Automations 2.0 are auto-populating complaints, discovery, and demand letters based off standard information from the intake form as well as automated emails detailing what happens at each step of the case. We're going to get there sometime next year (have a big trial that's taking up our attention).

There's software out there that does a lot of this stuff. People seem to like Lawcus, Filevine, and MyCase right now. They are much, much better CMS's than anything I had in biglaw. We decided to build out own because we think we can do a better job for our specific practice since a lot of the standard software is PI focused.

3) I know in personal injury cases there's often a settlement demand made before complaint filed. Does it work the same way in employment law litigation or do you just sign an engagement letter with a client --> file complaint with EEOC ---> right to sue --> file a complaint? What is the timeline on case resolution?

I settle a lot pre-lit. I basically draft a demand letter that has the same facts that I would put in my complaint. If they come back with a smoking gun, I have a hard talk with the client and sometimes we go our separate ways (rarely happens). More likely, they come back with some small counter and I copy/paste the demand into the charge and then copy/paste the charge into the complaint. Probably takes 5 hours to draft a demand and another two for complaint and charge.


4) How does one develop a sense of what a case is "worth" without experience with employment cases?
That's been a learning experience. You can quickly develop a network of other employment attorneys to bounce cases off of and get their experience regarding the market. In my markets, 25k-40k seems to be the range for lit.

Often, it just comes down to when in-house counsel wants to settle. You get that sense pretty quickly. I've already gotten a lot better based on less than 10 settlements. I'm sure that I will continue learning and getting better.

I'm also erring on the side of taking pretty good cases and pushing them into litigation. I do think that my biglaw background helps out as well since the rep (whether warranted or not) is that employment lawyers aren't great. The other side has commented on the fact that I worked in biglaw, and I can tell that often factors into things.

5) Are there any resources you would suggest for someone who is thinking about hanging shingle and wants to learn about SEO?

I learned a lot through just Googling. The whole point of SEO is to get at the top of the search engines. So, you can start by just reading the generic stuff from Neil Patel and Chase Reiner. After you realize that they aren't giving away the real secrets, you have to go more underground to blackhatworld or Reddit to see what people are really doing.

For employment law, you can rank in most markets with grey-hat techniques (guest posts, scholarship link building, etc.). I haven't used PBNs because the risk isn't worth it for me. Once you get into it, you'll quickly understand the terms I've just mentioned.

[Anonymous User]

You said you spent 5k on the website and another 10k on (?). Was that for SEO services?

To rank on Google did you get a virtual office or co-working space or is it a real office? For the llatter 250 is a good deal

[Lacepiece23]

You said you spent 5k on the website and another 10k on (?). Was that for SEO services?

To rank on Google did you get a virtual office or co-working space or is it a real office? For the llatter 250 is a good deal

The 10k was for an executive office (real office), and various odds and ends associated with SEO. The only reason that I have a real office is for SEO. Google will delist virtual offices in a heartbeat and then you have to start over with Google local.

To be honest, I probably spent less than 10k on SEO since I did basically all of it myself including writing the content.. I wrote mine because I could do it better and I needed to learn employment law. I spend a bit of money on guest posts

Now, I farm out new articles because I already have a bunch that rank nationally, and I don't really need to drive much more national traffic. If there is a keyword that I really want to rank for, I'll write the article myself still.

[Anonymous User]

You said you spent 5k on the website and another 10k on (?). Was that for SEO services?

To rank on Google did you get a virtual office or co-working space or is it a real office? For the llatter 250 is a good deal

The 10k was for an executive office (real office), and various odds and ends associated with SEO. The only reason that I have a real office is for SEO. Google will delist virtual offices in a heartbeat and then you have to start over with Google local.

To be honest, I probably spent less than 10k on SEO since I did basically all of it myself including writing the content.. I wrote mine because I could do it better and I needed to learn employment law. I spend a bit of money on guest posts

Now, I farm out new articles because I already have a bunch that rank nationally, and I don't really need to drive much more national traffic. If there is a keyword that I really want to rank for, I'll write the article myself still.

Would be curious to know how this is going a year later? Also while you didn't have an employment law background do you think that would've helped - 2L wanting to do L&E and looking at potential career paths.

[VirginiaFan]

What percent of your overhead is malpractice insurance and Westlaw subscriptions?

[Lacepiece23]

You said you spent 5k on the website and another 10k on (?). Was that for SEO services?

To rank on Google did you get a virtual office or co-working space or is it a real office? For the llatter 250 is a good deal

The 10k was for an executive office (real office), and various odds and ends associated with SEO. The only reason that I have a real office is for SEO. Google will delist virtual offices in a heartbeat and then you have to start over with Google local.

To be honest, I probably spent less than 10k on SEO since I did basically all of it myself including writing the content.. I wrote mine because I could do it better and I needed to learn employment law. I spend a bit of money on guest posts

Now, I farm out new articles because I already have a bunch that rank nationally, and I don't really need to drive much more national traffic. If there is a keyword that I really want to rank for, I'll write the article myself still.

Would be curious to know how this is going a year later? Also while you didn't have an employment law background do you think that would've helped - 2L wanting to do L&E and looking at potential career paths.

Going well, revenue is expected to be at around 250k-300k this year. I’m setting a goal of 500k-650k next year. Not making too much because my overhead is so high. But I’m looking to hire and chill as soon as possible because I’m tired of doing so much legal work myself. First associate starts next month. And I have a team of four with an operations person and virtual assistant.

Regarding coursework, yeah, I wish I took the class. I took a labor law clinic. In the end though, employment is hard and it’s not. There is a lot of nuance. A lot of plaintiffs lawyers get by fine without understanding the nuance.

Some defense lawyers do too actually. It’s a hard area to describe. You can make a lot of mistakes in an employment case and it not matter because these case usually settle before summary judgment anyway.

[Lacepiece23]

What percent of your overhead is malpractice insurance and Westlaw subscriptions?

Like 1%. I don’t have Westlaw and my malpractice was like 2k last year.

[nixy]

What percent of your overhead is malpractice insurance and Westlaw subscriptions?

Like 1%. I don’t have Westlaw and my malpractice was like 2k last year.

What do you use instead of Westlaw?

[thisismytlsuername]

It's pretty funny that in 10 months you went from "I do all the interesting work. I delegate things I don't like doing." to "I’m tired of doing so much legal work myself."

[Lacepiece23]

What percent of your overhead is malpractice insurance and Westlaw subscriptions?

Like 1%. I don’t have Westlaw and my malpractice was like 2k last year.

What do you use instead of Westlaw?

I use castext and then law students if I have a dispositive motion and need a WL cite.